


Consensual Administrative Restructuring

by NevillesGran



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Biting, Gen, Mind Manipulation, Vampires, the line between & and / is THIN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 03:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20828885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: Tim makes a choice.





	Consensual Administrative Restructuring

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly alternate timeline to ["The Importance of Having a Give and Take Relationship With Your Coworkers"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20772344) by [Turbulent_Muse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turbulent_Muse/pseuds/Turbulent_Muse). Just imagine that fic but only Martin chose right then, and Tim put it off for a few more days. I just wanted to do my own take on enthrallment...and didn't feel like being mean to Melanie. (For now.)

Tim couldn't quite bring himself to hate Elias. He really, _ really _ wanted to, but he _ couldn't_. Dislike, yes; fear, for sure. But the deep-seated loathing he sought was just infuriatingly unreachable.

There were still very few things Tim wouldn’t rather do than talk to the bastard. Jumping off a building would be preferable. Going hand to hand with a clown. Attending a Tory fundraiser. 

But he had a question it’d be easiest to ask in person, he’d been thinking about it all morning, and now he was coming back from lunch, so he might as well stop in the top-floor office before trekking down to the Archives in the basement.

Elias’s office door was open. Tim knocked on the doorframe as he walked in and started talking without invitation, because, you know, fuck this. “I have a question—“

“No you don’t.” Elias hadn’t looked away from his computer when Tim knocked and he didn’t look up now.

“What– you’re not _ pleased _ that I’m still doing my ‘job’, even though apparently all it really amounts to is being a– a blood bank for an evil bastard who’s probably seven hundred years old and still can’t pick a good tie?”

“Very droll. I’ll note the complaint for your next review.” 

Now Elias deigned to look at him, with a perfectly bland expression that suggested terrible things. “But no, you don’t have a question. You simply crave your next dose of vampiric blood, and perhaps to be fed on yourself, and you know subconsciously that I am the one to supply it. Because I’ve never allowed you to remember this, you’ve created the excuse of some query or another—as you have every other time for the past two and a half years that I didn’t summon you soon enough after the last dose.”

“That’s—“ 

Elias smiled indulgently. “What’s your question, Tim?”

He’d _ had _ one. Something about the next all-staff meeting? 

“Fuck off.”

“As I said, you are welcome to go to Jon instead,” Elias said, returning to his work. “You have another couple days before you get ill again. Though the longer you wait, the more inexorably you’ll find yourself drawn to me, and if I’m peckish, I certainly won’t care whether you’re in your right mind to consent.”

“Fuck _ off_,” Tim repeated, and stalked away. Ignoring, as he stomped down the stairs, the part of him that itched to go back and– what? Apologize, to the monster? Tilt his head back and—

He spent most of the afternoon playing Tetris and blasting music through his earbuds, because really, fuck this place.

He went home at 5 o’clock exactly, and spent the evening fucking around on his computer there. Netflix was truly the world’s greatest invention. He took some Benadryl to sleep, too antsy to drift off naturally. He wanted....something. (The taste of iron, the rush of energy; a sting in his neck and the dizzying bliss of orgasm but ongoing, knowing he was serving—)

He chased the Benadryl with a couple shots of gin, and still couldn’t blame the cottony headache he woke up with on that mistake.

So he got to work at 9 exactly, dropped his stuff at his desk, and stalked into Jon’s office. Melanie had a point that this was probably what Elias wanted, but Tim figured that at this point, anything they did short of managing to _ kill _ Elias was probably what Elias wanted, and he’d rather interact with the smug bastard as little as possible.

By the tea mug and general aura of business, Jon had already been in for hours, and Martin had at least beaten Tim. But what else was new.

“I pick you,” Tim said without preamble. “Bite me or whatever, just get it over with.”

Jon looked up as soon as Tim entered; his expression passed through confusion to surprise to a dark, glittering hunger that he couldn’t quite hide. 

“Tim. Are you sure? You don’t need to—“

“It’s you or _ him_,” said Tim, with as much sneer as he could. He put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head back, baring his neck. “I’d rather burn the whole building down and collect on insurance, but...”

(He wouldn’t, he knew he wouldn’t; he’d _ rather _ but he knew he never would.)

“If you’re sure...” said Jon, getting up from his desk. 

_ Protest a little less, why don’t you_, Tim thought. But this was what he wanted—what was his best option, for now. He’d hold the snipe for later.

“I’m not going to say ‘please,’” he said flatly. “Just let drink a bit of your blood, and quid pro quo if you need to, and that’s...the deal. We both survive this hellhole.”

Jon gave a wry non-smile, fangs peeking out the corners. “Little late for some of us. But, yeah.” 

Tim turned to watch as Jon crossed behind him to close the door, and took another couple steps into the office to give him room. His heartbeat kicked up when the door clicked shut, an awareness of being trapped that had really been present since he’d first tried to quit nearly a year ago. The thought crossed his mind that Elias wouldn’t like this, he could still shove past Jon and yank the door open again—no, Elias did approve; he wanted this, and Tim was only thinking about him because of his fucking _ evil vampire powers_. Which Tim was going to _ escape,_ now. Ish. Right into the arms of Jon’s evil vampire powers.

Jon was in front of him a little too fast, eyes a little too bright, fangs definitely too sharp. On reflex, Tim tilted his head farther back, baring the artery in his neck. Jon leaned forward and sniffed at it, sighing like a sommelier over a glass of oak-aged Bordeaux.

Tim's hands clenched in his pockets in instinctive, animal fear. 

Jon backed up half a step, though he looked like a rubber band about to snap forward. His dark eyes were difficult to look away from.

"Would you like to, uh, drink first? Martin says it, um. Feels better, when he's...had some some of mine."

All the creepy vampire charisma in the world, apparently, couldn't stop Jonathan Sims from sounding awkward as hell. That was a bit of comfort.

"Let's do that, then." Tim aimed for casual.

He knew he missed it by a mile as Jon raised one arm and bit open his own wrist, and his heart sped up about 100% at the sight of the bright blood beading on the too-pale skin.

"Um. Here." Jon offered his bleeding wrist. 

Tim felt some reassurance in the fact that he still took it warily, and put it to his lips with some trepidation. Lapping up the blood was second nature, though. It tasted...just slightly different than what he'd have expected. Not like his own blood, for sure; too thick, almost half congealed, and somehow both sweeter and more acidic. And not quite like...Elias's. he realized with a twist of disgust; he had been expecting Elias's blood, even if he didn't _ remember _ what it tasted like.

That uncomfortable thought faded; everything faded except how _ good _ the blood felt as it started to rush through him, and Jon's warm presence against his mind—

He fought, instinctively; pulled away mind and body. Lashed out, _ fuck OFF! _

Jon caught him by the back of his neck, pushed Tim's lips back to the blood on his wrist but kept his eyes pinned in enrapturing darkness. HIs voice was growling yet buttermilk-smooth. "Tim, you have to let me in. That's the point of this."

Tim rather thought he didn't have to _ let _ Jon do anything, and _ that _ was the terrible point of it all—but that was the last coherent thought before he gave up, or shattered under the pressure, and there was Jon pressing into his mind and lovingly understanding it to pieces. He cupped each memory gently and classified them, coloring them with fealty and affection. He scrubbed out every trace of the clinging cool that was Elias—and for that, at least, Tim was truly grateful. For the rest as well. Jon was going to take care of him because Tim belonged to him, under his protection, and it was so much kinder a shield. Even though he was still surprised that Tim had agreed to anything like this—which was absurd; Jon was a _ good _ master, Tim could just drift in the (blood) flow of his will...

They pulled apart at the same time. Jon yanked much harder and faster; Tim stumbled back, clutching his head.

"_Please _ don't do that," Tim gasped, and hated the fact that he was begging, and only half-knew why he wanted it to stop at all. He rubbed the blood off his lips, and wiped it on his pants before he could lick it off the back of his hand.

"I'm sorry," said Jon. "I should have— That was too much, I didn't need to—" 

He looked about as freaked out as Tim felt, which was, not as much as he was pretty sure he _ should _ feel.

(What Tim felt was _ great_—like he’d had an endorphin-laced continental breakfast, swum the English Channel, slept for twelve hours, and was ready to do it all again. Like he could jump off a building and fly.)

What Jon felt was tired and thirsty, like a runner needs water after an Olympic 500-meter. The ache of it tickled Tim’s own throat; the need to provide tugged at the very blood in his veins. 

He took a step forward, then stopped, and met Jon's eyes carefully _ without _ baring his neck. That was a mistake in and of itself: they were still intoxicatingly dark and bright at once, sunlight on drowning-deep water. His heart sped up again, and only went faster when Jon's fangs slid out in response.

"Go on," Tim said roughly, and jerked his head back and to the side (it felt so _ right _ to make that gesture to Jon now. That submission.)

In an instant, Jon had a hand cradling his head and the other curling around his shoulder blade, and it could have been a sloppy open-mouth kiss for a second until the fangs sank in. But it didn't hurt. Not for more than a moment, a tear of skin, a sense of sheer physical _ wrongness _ as the blood was pulled off-course—

All that disappeared under the warmth, the _ heat _ that radiated from the bite. It wasn't that Tim desperately needed to be touched, but that he already was. Every brush of air was a tease, every inch of cloth a caress. Jon's hands, his lips, his body pressed close were a sweet relief and nothing of the sort; they were divine intervention and the blood he took was sacrament. The blood Tim _ gave_, gladly. _ Now _ he could drift, content at last in filling his purpose. His master held him up to drink as he grew dizzy with blood loss, with electric hedonism, with bliss...

He came to in a chair, the spare chair in Jon's office, with Jon watching like an anxious vulture from his own seat behind the desk. His skin looked pale but alive, with fresh-drunk blood. 

"Tim, I'm _ so _ sorry," he began, as soon as Tim opened his eyes. "How do you feel? How's your head? I should have stopped—how do you feel? Do I need to call...someone?"

"I'm fine, don’t—" Tim started to reassure him, sitting up—and caught himself. Had to catch himself, against the desk. The swimming vision helped. 

"I feel like crap, actually," he informed his...boss. "Thanks for meeting my abominably low expectations." 

Jon managed to both shrink in on himself and bristle irritably. "I haven't had anything to drink in two days, to spare Martin, and driving Elias out of you took some effort, you know."

"Yeah, this is _ much _ better," Tim said sarcastically, and pushed himself to his feet. 

He wavered immediately. Jon was around the desk almost too fast to see. He nearly caught Tim by the elbow, then jerked back, looking unhappy.

_ Good,_ Tim thought savagely. He should be unhappy. They all should be. 

(He didn't want Jon to be unhappy. He wanted to do something to fix it, to return them both to that endless blissful rush.)

“I don’t actually think you need the hospital,” Jon said, half a step away. “You’ll—ah, Elias says that a thrall will regenerate lost blood at about twice normal human speed, and I’ve only had Martin— I’ve had about a week with Martin, but it seems to bear out.”

“Great,” said Tim, as the world started to ease up on the swimming. “Good to know he’s not _ completely _ lying to us for shits and giggles.” 

Oh, he could hate Elias now, properly. (Almost entirely properly.) That was an upside. A really genuine upside. Elusive, corrosive _ loathing _ churned in his gut at last.

He put a hand to his neck. The bite mark was very much there, but only about as obvious as a day-old hickey. Magical evil healing saliva-venom, right.

“How long was I out?” he asked.

“Just a couple minutes,” Jon assured him. “Or I really would have called...well, I would have tried to wake you up myself, at least.”

Little hard to explain to an ambulance that someone was unconscious from blood loss because you, a vampire, bit them, yeah, and they'd be better supernaturally soon but could still use some medical attention now. Better to skip the whole thing.

"Great," Tim replied. He took a step away from the desk, and the room only wavered a little, which meant he was basically fine. To leave. "I'm going to take the rest of the day off, if you don't mind."

It was sarcastic, it came out very satisfyingly acidic, but also, he didn't keep walking until Jon said "Of course." His hands still hovered at Tim's side. "Are you sure you don't need—"

Tim smacked the offered support away. "Don't– just, don't."

He regretted it immediately, as Jon deflated even further. He...desperately hoped this emotional attunement would fade after the initial burst. Clearly it hadn't been a Thing with Elias (or, possibly, Elias was an empty bastard with no emotions at all, except maybe amused cruelty. Loathing, sweet unadulterated loathing!)

He wobbled out of the office and back to his own desk, where he collapsed for a few minutes. Jon didn't follow, though he wanted to. Tim knew that he wanted to. The sense of his worried observation didn't diminish, as though he was looking over Tim's shoulder the entire time. It only faded when Tim pulled himself together and went home, and even then, there was a lingering _presence,_ twined around the core of him. It was...

Tim couldn't quite bring himself to hate it.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, the refrain of this 'verse is "[Character] deserves good things, but unfortunately the best they've got is Jon."
> 
> Tim's a fan of _Wicked._


End file.
